Mercenaries of Gor

4 Feiqa Serves in the Alar Camp

I heard the sudden, hesitant, choking cry of the newborn infant.

Genserix, broad-shouldered and powerful, in his furs and leather, with his heavy eyebrows, his long, braided blond hair and long, yellow, drooping mustache, looked up from the fire, about which we sat. The sound came from one of the wagons.

The bawling was now lusty.

"It will live," said one of the men, a sitting warrior near us.

Genserix shrugged. That would remain to be seen. Feiqa knelt behind me. We were now within the laager of Genserix, a chieftain of the Alars, a nomadic, wandering herding people, and one well known, like the folks of Torvaldsland, for their skills with the ax. The laager of the Alars, like that of similar folks, is a fortress of wagons. They are ranged in a closed circle, or concentric, closed circles, draft animals, and women and children within. Also, not unoften, depending on the numbers involved, and particularly when traversing, or sojourning in, dangerous countries, verr, tarsk, and bosk may also be found within the wagon enclosure. Sewage and sanitation, which might be expected to present serious problems, do not do so, because of the frequent moving of the camps.

"It is a son," said one of the women coming from the wagon, nearing the fire. "Not yet," said Genserix The wagons often move. There must be new grazing for the bosk. There must be fresh rooting and browse for the tarsk and verr. The needs of these animals, on which the Alars depend for their existence, are taken to justify movements, and sometimes even migrations, of the Alars and kindred peoples. Needless to day, these movements, particularly when they intrude into more settled area, often bring the folk of the laagers into conflict with other peasants and, of course, shortly thereafter, townsfolk and city dwellers who depend on the peasants for their foodstuffs. Also of course, their movements often, from a legal point of view, constitute actual invasions or indisputable territorial infringements, as when, uninvited, they enter areas technically within the jurisdiction or hegemony of given cities or towns.

Sometimes they pay for passage through a country, or pasturage within it, but this is the exception rather than the rule. They are a fierce folk and it would take a courageous town indeed to suggest the suitability or propriety of such an arrangement. From the point of view of the Alars, of course, they feel it is as absurd to pay for pasturage as it would be to pay for air, both of which are required for life. "Without grass the bosk will die," they say. "The bosk will live," they add. They often find themselves temporarily within the borders of a town's or city's lands, usually about their fringes, but sometimes, depending on the weather and grazing conditions, much deeper within them. Most often little official notice is taken of them, no war challenges being issued, and they are regarded merely as peripheral, unwelcome itinerants, uninvited guests, dangerous, temporary visitors with whom the local folks must for a time live uneasily. It is a rare council or citizenry that does not breathe more easily once the wagons have taken their way out of their lands.

The woman who had come to bear tidings to Genserix now turned about and returned to the wagon.

When there is weakness or chaos in an area, and when the ordinary structures of social order are disrupted, with the concurrent disorganization, failures of responsibility and discipline, it is natural for folks like the Alars to appear. They have a tendency to pour into such areas. Indeed, sometimes they can make them their own, settling within them, sometimes turning to the soil themselves, sometimes assuming the roles and prerogatives of a conquering aristocracy, and becoming, in their turn, the foundation of a new civilization. I had little doubt that it was the current weakness and disorder in this area, attendant on the Cosian invasion, which had drawn the Alars this far south. On the other hand, officially, as I had gathered from the driver with whom I had ridden on the Genesian Road, these Alars had been approached to serve as suppliers and wagoners to the troops. It was in this capacity that they were this close to the road. In accepting this arrangement, the Alars, of course, were in an excellent position to observe the course of events, and, if it seemed practical to them, take possible action. Here they could watch closely for opportunities, either monetary or territorial. Perhaps the men of Cos, no fools, had invited them inward that they might remain in this area, thus rendering more difficult its reoccupation by the forces of Ar. Perhaps, in virtue of gifts of lands, they hoped to make them grateful, pledged allies.

I could hear movement in the nearby wagon. A woman climbed into it carrying cloths and water. I heard the child crying again.

Besides the ax Alars are fond of the Alar sword, a long, heavy, double-edged weapon. Their shields tend to be oval, like those of the Turians. Their most common mount is the medium-weight saddle tharlarion, a beast smaller and less powerful, but swifter and more agile, than the common high tharlarion. Their saddles, however, have stirrups, and thus make possible the use of the couched shock lance. Some cities use Alars in their tharlarion cavalries. Others, perhaps wisely, do not enlist them in their own forces, either as regulars or auxiliaries. When the Alars ride forth to do battle they normally have their laager behind them, to which, in the case of defeat, they swiftly retire. They are fierce and redoubtable warriors in the open field. They know little, however, of politics, or in siege work and the taking of cities. In the cities, normally one needs only to close the gates and wait for them to go away, compelled eventually to do so by the needs of their animals.

A woman now descended from the wagon, carrying a small object. She came near to the fire and Genserix motioned for her to put the object down, to lay it on the dirt before him, between himself and the fire. She did so. He then crouched down near it, and gently, with his large hands, put back the edges of the blanket in which it was wrapped. The tiny baby, not minutes old, with tiny gasps and coughs, still startled and distressed with the sharp, frightful novelty of breathing air, never again to return to the shelter of its mother's body, lost in a chaos of sensation, its eyes not focused, unable scarcely to turn its head from side to side, lay before him. The cord had been cut and tied at its belly. Its tiny legs and arms moved. The blood, the membranes and fluids, had been wiped from its small, hot, red, firm body. Then it had been rubbed with animal fat. How tiny were its head and fingers. How startling and wonderful it seemed that such a thing should be alive. Genserix looked at it for a time, and then he turned it over, and examined it further. Then he put it again on its back. He then stood up, and looked down upon it.

The warriors about the fire, and the woman, and two other women, too, who had now come from the wagon, looked at him.

Then Genserix reached down and lifted up the child. The women cried out with pleasure and the men grunted with approval. Genserix held the child up now, happily, it almost lost in his large hands, and then he lifted it up high over his head.

"Ho!" called the warriors, standing up, rejoicing. The women beamed.

"It is a son!" cried one of the women.

"Yes," said Genserix. "It is a son!"

"Ho!" called the warriors. "Ho!"

"What is going on?" asked Feiqa.

"The child has been examined," I said. "It has been found sound. It will be permitted to live. It is now an Alar. Too, he has lifted the child up. In this he acknowledges it as his own."

Genserix then handed the child to one of the warriors. He then drew his knife. "What is he going to do?" gasped Feiqa.

"Be quiet," I said. Genserix then, carefully, made two incisions in the face of the infant, obliquely, one on each cheek. The infant began to cry. Blood ran down the sides of its face, about the sides of its neck and onto its tiny shoulders. "Let it be taken now," said Genserix, "to its mother."

The woman who had brought the child to the side of the fire now took up the blanket in which it had been wrapped, and, wrapping it again on its folds, took it then from the warrior, and made her way back to the wagon.

"These are a warrior people," I said to Feiqa, "and the child is an Alar. It must learn to endure wounds before it receives the nourishment of milk." Feiqa shrank back, frightened to be among such men.

On the face of Genserix, and on the faces of those about us, the males, were the thin, white, knife-edge lines, the narrow scars, by which it might be known that each had, in his time, undergone the same ceremony. By such scars one may identify Alars.

"I rejoice in your happiness," I said to Genserix, who had now resumed his place by the fire.

Genserix declined his head briefly, smiling, and spread his hands, expansively. "At a time of such happiness," said a fellow, his long dark hair bound back with a beaded leather talmit, "you need not even be killed for having come to our camp uninvited."

"Hold," I said, uneasily. "I was told in the camp of the wagoners, some of those in the supply trains of Cos, that there might be work here for me."

One or two of the men struck each other about the shoulders in amusement.

"I gather that is not true," I said.

"Shall we kill him anyway?" asked a fellow.

"Surely folks come often to the wagons," I said.

"Do not mind Parthanx and Sorath," said a tall, broad shouldered fellow sitting cross-legged beside me. He, too, like Genserix, had long, braided hair and a yellow mustache. Too like Genserix, he was blue-eyed. Many of the Alars are fair in complexion, blond-haired and blue-eyed. "They jest. They are the camp wits," he explained. "Many folks come to the wagons, as you know, informers, slavers, tradesmen, metal workers, craftsmen, peasants who will barter produce for skins and trinkets, and so on. If this were not so we could not easily have the goods we have, nor could we keep up as well with the news. If it were not so, we would be too cut off from the world. We would consequently be unable to conduct our affairs as judiciously as we do."

I nodded. Folk like the Alars tended to move in, and about, settled territories. They were not isolated in vast plains areas, for example, as were certain subequatorial Wagon Peoples, such as Tuchucks and Kassars.

The fellows identified as Parthanx and Sorath shoved at one another good-naturedly, pleased with their joke.

"Let rings be brought!" called out Genserix.

"I am Hurtha," said the blond fellow beside me. "You must not think of us as barbarians. Tell us about the cities."

"What would you like to know?" I asked. He would be interested, I assumed in such matters as the nature of their walls, the number of gates, their defenses, the strength of garrisons, and such.

"Is Ar as beautiful as they say?" he asked. "And what is it like to live there?" "It is very beautiful," I said. "And although I am not a citizen of Ar, nor of Telnus, the capital of Cos, it is doubtless easier to live in such places than among the wagons. Why do you ask?"

"Hurtha is a weakling, and a poet!" laughed Sorath.

"I am a warrior, and an Alar," said Hurtha, "but it is true that I am fond of songs."

"There is no incompatibility between letters and arms," I said. "The greatest soldiers are often gifted men."

"I have considered going abroad, to seek my fortune," he said.

"What would you do?" I asked.

"My arm is strong," he said, "and I can ride."

"You would seek service then with some captain?" I said.

"Yes," he said, "and if possible with the finest."

"Many are the causes on Gor," I said, "and so, too, many are the captains." "My first appointments," he said, "might be with anyone." "Many captains," I said, "choose their causes on the scales of merchants, weighing their iron against gold. They fight, I fear, only for the Ubar with the deepest purse."

"I am an Alar," said Hurtha. "The cities are always at war with us. It is always the fields against the walls. No matter then which way I face, nor whom I strike, it would be a blow, against enemies."

" I am a mercenary, of sorts," I said, "but I have usually selected my causes with care."

"And one should," agreed Hurtha, "for otherwise one might not improve one's fortunes."

I looked at him.

"Right," said Hurtha, "if that is what you are interested in, seems to me a very hard thing to understand. I am not sure there is really any such thing, at all. I have never tasted it, nor seen it, nor felt it. If it does exist, it seems likely to me that it would be on both sides, like sunlight and air. Surely no war has been fought in which both sides have not sincerely claimed, and presumably believed, for one reason or another, that they were right. Thus, if right is always on both sides, one cannot help but fight for it. If that then is the case, why should one not be paid as well as possible for the risks he takes?"

"Have you ever tasted, or seen, or felt honor?" I asked.

"Yes," said Hurtha. "I have tasted honor, and seen it, and felt it, but it is not like tasting bread, or seeing a rock, or feeling a woman. It is different." "Perhaps right is like that," I said.

"Perhaps," said Hurtha. "But the matter seems very complex and difficult to me." "It seems so to me, too," I said. "I am often surprised why it seems so easy to so many others."

"Yes," said Hurtha.

"Perhaps they are more gifted than we in detecting its presence," I speculated. "Perhaps," said Hurtha, "but why, then, is there so much disagreement among them?"

"I do not know," I admitted. Rings were then brought, heavy rings of silver and gold, large enough for a wrist or arm, and Genserix distributed these to high retainers. From the same box, he then distributed coins among the others. Even I received a silver tarsk. There were treasures among the wagons, it seemed. The tarsk was one of Telnus. In this small detail I suspected there might be found evidence of the possible relationship between the movements of Cos and the coming of the Alar wagons to the Genesian Road.

"Are there such women as these in the cities?" asked Hurtha, indicating Feiqa. "Thousands," I informed him.

"Surely we should study siege work," smiled Hurtha.

Feiqa shrank back a bit.

"Such women may be bought in the cities," I said, "in slave markets, from the houses of slavers, from private dealers. Surely you could have such among the wagons, if you wished. You could have strings brought out to be examined, or accepted, on approval. I see no problem in the matter." Interestingly, I had noted few, if any, slaves among the wagons. This was quite different from the Wagon Peoples of the far south. There beautiful slaves, in the scandalously revealing chatka and curla, the kalmak and the koora, tiny rings in their noses, were common among the wagons. "You mentioned, as I recall, that slavers among others, came occasionally to the wagons."

"Yes," he said, "but usually to buy our captures, picked up generally in raids or fighting."

"Why are there so few slaves among the wagons?" I asked.

"The free women kill them," said Hurtha.

Feiqa gasped. I decided that perhaps I had best be soon on my way. She was a beauty, and was extremely sexually exciting, sometimes almost maddeningly so, to men. I had no wish to risk her in this place. She was exactly the sort of female which, in her helplessness and collar, in her vulnerability and brief tunic, tends to inspire jealous hatred, sometimes bordering almost on madness, in free women, particularly homely and sexually frustrated ones. "Oh!" said Feiqa, as he called Sorath closed his hand about her upper arm. His grip was tight. There was no mistaking its nature. He had her in mind. "Hold," I said to him, putting my hand on his arm.

"Hold?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Hold."

"You are not an Alar," he said. "I will take her."

"No," I said.

"This is our camp," he said.

"It is my slave," I said.

"Give her to me," he said. "I will give her back to you happier, and with only a few bruises."

"No," I said.

"In the camp I do what I wish," he said.

"I doubt that that is always the case," I said.

He stood up. I, too, stood up. He was a bit shorter than I, but was extremely broad and powerful. It is a not uncommon build among Alars.

"You have taken food here," said Sorath.

"And I have been pleased to have done so," I said. "Thank you."

"You are a guest here," said Sorath.

"And I expect to receive the respect and courtesy due a guest," I said. "Let him have her for a few Ehn," suggested Hurtha.

"He has not asked," I said.

"Ask," suggested a fellow to Sorath.

"He will not know the ax," said Hurtha. "He is not of the wagons." "Let them then be blades!" roared Sorath.

"The ax will be fine," I said. I had learned its use in Torvaldsland. I had little doubt that the Torvaldslanders could stand up to any folk in the use of the ax.

"Let the axes be headless," said Genserix. This proposal surprised me somewhat, but I welcomed it. It seemed a decent and generous gesture on the part of Genserix. Not every chieftain of the Alars, I supposed, would have been so thoughtful. In this fashion the worse that was likely to happen was that the loser would have his head broken open. The men about the fire grunted their agreement. They all seemed rather decent fellows. Sorath, too, I was pleased to see, nodded. Apparently he, at least after a moment of choler, upon a more sober reflection, had no special wish to kill me. He would probably be satisfied to beat me unconscious. In the morning then I might awaken naked, tied to a stake outside the wagons. In a few days, then, which I might have spent ruminating on my ingratitude, while living on water poured into a hole near me, and on vegetables thrown to me, like a tarsk, when the wagons moved I might have been freed, a well-used Feiqa then returned to me, perhaps with a fresh Alar brand in her hide, that I might be reminded, from time to time, of the incident.

Two of the long heavy handles were brought.

I hefted one. It had good weight and balance.

"Beware, friend" said Hurtha. "Sorath well knows the ways of the ax." "Thank you," I said.

Feiqa whimpered.

"Prepare yourself for the future," I said.

"Master?" she asked, puzzled.

"Shall the female be held?" asked a fellow.

"That will not be necessary," I said. "Stay, Feiqa"

"Yes, Master," she said. She would now keep her place, kneeling as she was, until a free person might permit her to move.

Sorath spit upon his hands and gripped the handle. He cut the air with a stroke or two.

I went to an open place near the fire.

"See?" said one of the fellows, "He takes a position with the fire at his back." Some of the others nodded, too, seemingly having noted this.

When possible, of course, given consideration of the land, warriors like to have both the sun and wind at their back. The glare from the sun, even if it is not blinding, can be wearing upon an enemy, particularly if the battle persists for Ahn. The advantages of having the wind at one's back are obvious. It flights one's arrows, increasing their range; it gives additional impetus to one's movements and charges; and whatever dust or debris it might carry is more likely to effect the enemy than oneself.

Sorath struck fiercely down at me with the handle and I blocked the blow, smartly. His blow had been a simple, obvious one, and unless he had intended to use it in wearing down my strength or perhaps breaking the handle I carried, it made little sense. He stood back, considering matters.

"Surely you would not have struck at an Alar like that," I said. He must be clear that I had not brought my handle back, under the blow, slashing upward to his neck, a blow that can, with the Torvaldsland ax, at least, cut the head from a man.

"True, Stranger," said a woman's voice. I stepped back a little, sensing that there was momentary truce between Sorath and myself, but also keeping track of him. He could not change position without my detecting it. "I have seen tharlarion who could handle and ax better than that," she said. Sorath reddened, angrily. It was apparently a free woman of the Alars, only she was not dressed as were the other women of the camp, in their coarse, heavy, ankle-length woolen dresses. She wore rather the garmenture of a male, the furs and leather. At her belt there was even a knife. She was strikingly lovely, though, I supposed, given her mien and attitude, she would not have taken such an observation as a compliment. She was about the same size as Feiqa, though perhaps a tiny bit shorter, and like Feiqa, was dark-haired and dark-eyed. I thought they might look well together, as a brace of slaves.

Sorath then, stung by her remark, flung himself wildly toward me and fought frenziedly, but rashly. I blocked blows, not wishing to take advantage of his recklessness. I refrained from striking him. Had we been using real axes, the handles armed with iron, I might have finished him several times. I do not know if he was fully aware of this, but I am sure some of the others were. Hurtha and Genserix, for example, judging from the alarm which I noted in their expressions, seemed to be under no misapprehensions in the matter. To be sure, had the handles been armed perhaps he would have addressed himself to our match with much greater circumspection. Panting, Sorath backed away.

"Fight, Sorath," taunted the woman. "He is an outsider. Are you not an Alar?" "Be silent, woman," said Genserix, angrily.

"I am a free woman," she said. I may speak as I please."

"Do not seek to interfere in the affairs of men," said Genserix.

She faced the group, standing on the other side of the fire. Her feet were spread. On her feet were boots of fur. Her arms were crossed insolently upon her chest. "Are there men here?" she asked. "I wonder."

There was a rumble of angry sounds from the gathered warriors. But none did anything to discipline the girl. She was, of course, free. Free women, among the Alars, have high standing.

"Do you think you are a man?" inquired one of the warriors.

"I am a female," she said, "but I am not different from you, not in the least." There were angry murmurs from the men.

"Indeed," she said, "I am probably more a man than any of you here." "Give her an ax," said Genserix.

An ax, a typical Alar ax, long handled, armed with its heavy iron blade, was handed to the girl. She took it, holding it with difficulty. It was clear it was too heavy for her. She could scarcely lift it, let alone wield it.

"You could not use that blade, even for chopping wood," said Genserix. "What is your name?" I asked her.

"Tenseric," she said.

"That is a male's name," I said.

"I chose it myself," she said. "I wear it proudly."

"Have you always been called that?" I asked.

"I was called Boabissia," she said, "until I came of age, and chose my own name."

"You are still Boabissia," said one of the warriors. "No!" she said. "I am Tenseric."

"You are a female, are you not?" I asked.

"I suppose so," she said, angrily. "But what is that supposed to mean?" "Does it mean nothing?" I asked.

"No," she said. "It means nothing."

"Are you the same as a man?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

There was laughter from the warriors about the fire.

"It takes more than fur and leather, and a dagger worn pretentiously at one's belt, to make a man." I said.

She looked at me with fury.

"You are a female," called one of the men. "Be one!"

"No!" she cried.

"Put on a dress!" called another of the men.

"Never!" she cried. "I do not want to be one of those pathetic creatures who must wait on you and serve you!"

"Are you an Alar?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"No," said Genserix. "She is not an Alar. We found her, years ago, when she was an infant, beside the road, abandoned in blankets, amidst the wreckage of a raided caravan."

"One which had fallen to the Alars?" I inquired.

"No," said a fellow, chuckling.

"I wished it had fallen to us," said another. "From the size of the caravan, we conjecture the loot must have been considerable."

"There was little left when we arrived," commented another.

"Do not be misled," said Hurtha, smiling. "We do not really do much raiding. It does not make for good relations with the city dwellers."

His remark made sense to me. The Alars, and such folk, can be aggressive and warlike in seeking their grazing grounds, but, if left alone, they are seldom practitioners of unrestricted or wholesale raiding.

"We took the child in, and raised it," said Genserix. "We named it Boabissia, a good Alar name."

"You are not then really of the wagons," I said to the girl. "Indeed, you are quite possibly a female of the cities." "No!" said the girl. "I am truly of the wagons! I have lived among them all my life."

"She is not of the wagons, by blood," said a man.

She looked at him angrily.

"Slash my face! she cried.

"We do not slash the faces of our females," said a man.

"Slash mine!" she said.

"No," said Genserix.

"Then I shall do it myself!" she said.

"Do not," said Genserix, sternly.

"Very well," she said. "I shall not. I shall do as my chieftain asks." I saw that she did not wish, truly, to disfigure herself in the mode of the Alar warriors. I found that of interest. From the point of view of the men, too, of course, they did not desire this. For one thing she was not of the warriors and was thus not entitled to this badge of station; indeed, her wearing it, as she was a mere female, would be a joke to outsiders and an embarrassment to the men; it would belittle its significance for them, making it shameful and meaningless. The insignia of men, like male garments, become empty mockeries when permitted to women. This type of thing leads eventually both to the demasculinization of men and the defeminization of females, a perversion of nature disapproved of generally correctly or incorrectly, by Goreans. For another thing she was a beautiful woman and they had no desire to see her disfigured in this fashion. "Your chieftain is grateful," said Genserix, ironically.

"Thank you, my chieftain," she said. Reddening, inclining her head. She had little alternative, it seemed, in her anger other than to pretend to accept his remark at face value. I wondered why Genserix did not strip her and have her tied under a wagon for a few days. She looked at me in fury. "I am an Alar," she said.

Some of the warriors laughed.

"It seems more probable to me that you are a woman of the cities," I said. "No!" she said. "No!"

"Consider your coloring," I said, "and your shortness, and the darkness of your hair and eyes. Consider, too, the suggestion of interesting female curvatures beneath your leather and fur." Most of the Alar women are rather large, plain, cold, blond, blue-eyed women. "You remind me of many women I have seen chained naked in slave markets."

There was much laughter from the men.

"No!" she cried to them. "No!" she cried to me.

"It is true," I said.

"No!" she cried.

There was more laughter.

"I am an Alar!" she cried.

"No," said more than one man.

"Are you a man?" asked a fellow.

"No," she said. "I am a woman!"

"It is true," laughed a man.

"But I am a free woman!" she cried, with a look of hatred cast at Feiqa, who shrank back, trembling, beneath her fierce gaze.

"Lift up the ax you carry," said Genserix, "high, over your head, as though to strike one with it. Hold it near the end of the handle."

She, standing across from us, on the other side of the fire, tried to do this. But in a moment, struggling, unable to manage the weight, she twisted her body and the ax fell. Its head struck the dirt. The warriors were not pleased with this.

Some murmured in anger. "I cannot," she said. I myself would have had her kneel down and clean the blade with her hair. It can be a capital offense on Gor, incidentally, for a slave to so much as touch a weapon.

"Brandish it, wield it," said Genserix to her, sternly.

She tried again to lift the ax, and then again, lowered it, until she held it before her, as she had done before, with difficulty, with both hands, her hands separated well on the handle. "I cannot," she said.

"Then put it down, and leave," said Genserix.

"Yes, my chieftain," she said. She put down the ax, and then hurried away, angrily, into the darkness. I supposed that she, in her upbringing, had felt a little affinity with the Alar women. Certainly it seemed she had not cared to identify with them. Perhaps, too, as she was not an Alar by blood, they never truly accepted her. Yet it seemed she had bee, as is often the case with Alar children, raised with much permissiveness. Not identifying with the women, or being accepted by them, and perhaps coming to bitterly envy the men, their position and status, their nature and power, it seemed she may have turned toward trying to prove herself the same as them, turning then to mannish customs and garb, attempting thusly, desperately, angrily, to find some sort of place for herself among the wagons. As a result, it seemed she would be accepted by neither sex. She seemed to me confused and terribly unhappy. I did not think she knew her own identity. I do not think she knew who she was. Some of the men, perhaps, knew better than she herself did.

"Now," said Genserix, "let us continue the contest."

There were grunts of approval by the men.

Once again Sorath and I squared off against one another. This time, not mocked and taunted by the female, he fought extremely well. As Hurtha had warned me earlier, Sorath well knew the ways of the ax. Now that his temper had cooled he fought with agility and precision. The reckless and sometimes irrational temper of folks like Sorath, and it was a temper not unusual among the proud Alar herders, was something that they would be well advised to guard against. Too often it proves the undoing of such folks. Hundreds of times calculated defenses and responsible tactics have proved their worth in the face of brawn and wrath. The braveries of barbarism are seldom of little avail against a rational, determined, prepared foe. But let those of the cities tremble that among the hordes there might one day arise one who can unify storms and harness lightning. I slipped to the side and, swinging the ax handle inward caught Sorath in the solar plexus, that network of nerves and ganglia high in the abdominal cavity, lying behind the stomach and in front of the upper part of the abdominal aorta. I did not strike deeply enough to injure him, to rupture or tear open his body, slashing the stomach or crushing the aortal tube, only enough to stop him, definitely. For good measure I then, with the left side of the handle, swinging it upward, and then down, brought it down on the back of his neck as he, helpfully, expectantly, grunting, doubled over. I did not strike him hard enough to break the vertebrae. He slipped to his knees, vomiting, and then, stunned, half paralyzed, fell forward. I then stood behind him, the handle grasped at the ready, near its end. From such a position one can, rather with impunity, with an unarmed handle, break the neck to the side or crush the head. Had the handle been armed, of course, one might, from such a position, sever the backbone or remove the head. Sorath was fast. I was faster.

"Do not kill him!" said Genserix.

"Of course not," I said. "He is one of my hosts," I stepped back from Sorath. "You fought very well," said Genserix.

"Sorath is very good, don't you think?" asked Hurtha.

"Yes," I said. "He is quite good."

"Your prowess proves you well worthy to be a guest of the Alars," said Genserix. "Welcome to our camp. Welcome to the light and heat of our fire."

"Thank you," I said, tossing aside the handle.

"Are you still alive?" Parthanx inquired solicitously of Sorath, his friend. "Yes," reported Sorath.

"Do not be so lazy, then" said Parthanx encouragingly. "Get up." Parthanx, like the others, seemed to have enjoyed the fight.

"Let me help you," I said. I gave Sorath a hand, and half pulled him to his place by the fire. He looked up at me, shaking his head. "Well done," he said. "Thank you," I said. "You did splendidly yourself."

"Thank you," he said.

"Yes," said Genserix.

"Yes," said Sorath.

"Yes," said the others.

"Thank you," I said. "I am grateful for your welcome. I thank you, too, for the food and drink I have received here, for the heat and light of your fire, and for your fellowship. I thank you for your hospitality. It is worthy of the best things I have heard of Alars. I would now like, if I may, in my own way, and of my own free will, as it will now be clearly understood, to do something for you, something that will help, in a small way, to express my appreciation."

Genserix and his warriors looked at one another, puzzled.

I turned to Feiqa. "Strip," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"Must a command be repeated?" I inquired.

"No, Master!" she cried. In an instant she was bared.

"Stand," I said. "Lift your arms over your head." Instantly she complied. She was then very beautiful, standing thusly in the light of the fire, before the barbaric warriors of Genserix, in the Alar camp.

"Such women," I said, "may be purchased in the cities." There were appreciative murmurs as the men drank in the fire-illuminated beauty of the naked slave. "Dance," I told Feiqa.

"I do not know how to dance, Master," she moaned.

"In every female there is a dancer," I said.

"Master," she protested.

"I know you are not trained," I said.

"Master," she said.

"There are many forms of dance," I said. "Music is not even necessary. It need not even be more than beautiful movement. Move before the men, and about them, Move as seductively and beautifully as you can, and as a slave, saying, crawling, kneeling, rolling, supine, prone, begging, pleading, piteous, caressing, kissing, licking, rubbing against them."

"Do I have a choice, Master?" she asked.

"No," I said, "absolutely not."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Would you prefer your pretty flesh to be lashed from your bones?" I asked. "No, Master!" she said.

"And as the evening progresses, and as men might desire you," I said, "you will please them, and fully." "Yes, Master," she said.

"You are a slave, an absolute and total slave," I reminded her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

One of the fellows, then, began to sing, "Hei, Hei," and clap his hands. Feiqa danced.

The men cried out with pleasure, many of them joining in the song, and keeping time with their hands. I was incredibly proud of her. How joyful it is to own females and have absolute power over them! Seldom, indeed, I imagined, did the rude herders of the Alars have such a vision of imbonded loveliness in their camp, and in their arms. Such delicious females were not allowed in their camps, I gathered. The free women did not permit them. They probably had them hidden in wagons, until they could be sold off, or killed. How beautiful Feiqa was! What incredible power she exercised, though only a helpless slave, over men! How she pleased them and made them scream with pleasure! How incredibly basic, how fundamental, how real she was! I then felt a sudden, poignant sorrow for the women of Earth. How different Feiqa was from them. How far removed delicious, exquisite Feiqa was from the motivated artifices, the lies and fabrications, the propaganda, the demeaning, sterile, unsatisfying, reductive, negative superficialities of antibiological roles, the prescriptions of an unnatural and pathological politics, the manipulative instrumentations of monsters and freaks. I wondered how many of the women of Earth wished they might find themselves in a collar, dancing naked in the firelight before warriors in an Alar camp.

"Disgusting! Disgusting!" cried the free woman, Boabissia, in her leather and furs, having returned to the fire, and she rushed forward, a stout, thick, short, supple, single-bladed quirtlike whip in her hand. She began to lash Feiqa, who fell to her knees, howling with misery, a whipped slave. "We do not allow such as you in an Alar camp!" cried the free woman. Feiqa put her head down. Again the lash fell on her. I leaped to the free woman and tore the whip from her hand, hurling it angrily to the side. She looked at me, wildly, in fury, not believing I had dared to interfere. "What right have you to interfere?" she demanded. "The right of a man who is not pleased with your behavior, female," I said. "Female!" she cried, in fury. "Yes," I said. Her hand darted to the hilt of the dagger she wore at her belt. I regarded her evenly. She, frightened, quickly removed her hand from the hilt of the dagger, crying out in frustration, in rage. Then she lifted her fists and, with the sides of them, together, struck towards me. "Oh!" she cried, in misery, in frustration. I had caught both her small wrists. She could not begin to free them. "Oh!" she cried in misery, in protest, as, inexorably, slowly, I forced her down. Then she was kneeling before me, her wrists in my grip. I turned her about and flung her to her belly, and then knelt across her thighs. I removed her dagger from its sheath. "No!" she cried. I then, with her own dagger, cut her clothing from her body.

"Binding fiber," I said, not even looking, just putting out my hand. Some was fetched, a length of some five feet, or so, and, in a moment, with one end of the fiber, with a few loops and a knot, her wrists crossed, her hands were secured behind her back. I had tied her tightly, utterly helplessly, as I might have a slave. "Help!" she cried out to the warriors. "Help!" But none stirred to render her assistance. I then reversed my position on her body, kneeling now facing her feet, across the small of her back. I pulled her ankles up, behind her body, at an angle of about fifty degrees, and crossed them. I then, with the free end of the binding fiber, extending back from her wrists, tied them together, tightly, fastening them to her wrists. "Please!" she cried to the warriors but none leapt to her succor. I then lifted her up, in effect kneeling her, and then bent her back, her head back to the dirt, that the warriors might assess the bow of her beauty.

"She is pretty," said a fellow. "Yes," said another. It was true. She had a lovely figure. It had been hitherto muchly concealed from detection by the leather and furs she had worn, though even beneath them its subtle and tantalizing lineaments had been clearly suggested. "Come, see Boabissia," called a fellow, "trussed like a tarsk!" Some more fellows, and even some free women, came over to look. Boabissia now permitted to kneel upright, squirmed, fighting the fiber. She was helpless. "Feiqa will now again dance," I said. "If you wish, you may be hooded or blindfolded. She looked down, sullenly, angrily, and shook her head. "If you cry out," I said, "you will be gagged. Do you understand?" "Yes," she said.

I looked at Boabissia's throat. About it, tied on a leather thong, was a small, punched copper disk. "What is that?" I asked, pointing to it. She did not respond. I then put her to her back, her knees drawn up, her wrists behind her, under the small of her back. I then bent over her and lifted up the disk, examining it in the firelight. She did not resist. Bound as she was, there was little she could do. Too, resistance might have earned her perfunctory, disciplinary cuffs. The punched copper disk, threaded on its thong, was not large. It was about an inch or so in diameter. On it was the letter Tau and a number. "What is this?" I asked Genserix, indicating the disk. "We do not know," he said. "It was tied about her throat when we found her, years ago, a tiny infant, wrapped in a blanket, in the wreckage of the caravan."

"Surely you must have wondered about this?" I said to Boabissia.

She looked away, not responding.

"It must be a key to your identity," I said.

She did not respond.

I let the disk fall back, just below her neck. It, on its thong, was now all she wore, except for her bonds.

I looked to Feiqa, still kneeling, her back bright with the memory of the free woman's attentions.

"You may now continue to dance, Feiqa," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

The men cried out with approval, and smote their left shoulders with pleasure. In a moment Feiqa, vital and sensuous, liberated now from the fear of the free woman, and having felt the whip, in that perhaps being reminded of what might be the consequences of failing to please free persons, addressed herself once more, eagerly and joyously, marvelously and subserviently, to the pleasures of masters. I was so aroused I was in pain. I could hardly wait to get her back to the camp of the wagoners. From time to time I glanced at Boabissia. She was on her side, trussed, watching Feiqa. In her eyes there was awe, understanding what a woman could be.

After some Ahn, in the neighborhood of dawn, I returned to the camp of the wagoners. Feiqa walked behind me, slowly, weary, healing me, her body sore, her tiny tunic held over her left shoulder. Near the wagoners' camp I turned to face her. "Before you retire," I said, "I have business for you in my blankets. After that I will tether you for the night."

"Yes, Master," she smiled.

In a few moments we had come to the wagon of the fellow who had given us a ride earlier. Near the wagon, naked, chained by the neck to the back, right wheel, was the peasant girl, Tula. In the moonlight I examined her. Under her neck chain was a slave collar.